Lionel Messi magic: Inter Miami “motivated” by historic crowd at Gillette Stadium

With two clinical goals followed by one assist from the irresistible Messi, the Herons conjured up another Saturday night spectacle, this time a 4-1 victory at a packed Gillette Stadium, putting the luckless New England Revolution to the sword before a record crowd of 65,612 whose energy lent a rare vibe to the occasion.

A Tomás Chancalay stunner in the game’s first minute gave the last-place Revs a dream start. Yet it proved just a footnote as Messi’s involvement in all four of his side’s tallies pushed his 2024 league total to 16 goal contributions in his first seven matches, the most ever by an MLS player in their first seven games of a season.

As often as the term ‘unplayable’ gets bandied about in modern soccer, it would seem to apply to Messi at present.

“I thought in the first half, after the goal, we had them locked up pretty good, where they weren’t getting many chances, they weren’t finding a lot of time and space to operate. Then Messi did what he does, and he found a crack,” Revs head coach Caleb Porter said afterwards.

“I still thought at 1-1 we had a great chance in the game. We started the second half pretty well. We started keeping the ball and then he found another crack. Almost the exact same play, different side. First one was our left side, second was our right side in that seam in between our center back and our outside back,” Porter added. “They were able to find two goals when we felt pretty good about the defending, and that we were limiting their effectiveness, creating clear chances. But, you know, that’s Messi. He finds two goals out of nowhere and it exposes the detail in those moments from us.”